The Rapids

by Carla Neggers

  “Its official name is the Raven Kill,” she said. “Kill is an old-fashioned Dutch word for river or creek, but nobody knows that anymore. So, we generally say Ravenkill Creek. Technically it’s redundant, but otherwise, who’d know what we were talking about? Do you speak Dutch, Agent Spencer, since you’re assigned to the American embassy in The Hague?”

  “I’ve picked up the grammar, and I know a few words.”

  “And you, Deputy,” Libby said. “They say you speak eight or nine languages.”

  “Not quite that many,” Rob said.

  “It’s such a gift. I can get along in French, but that’s about it. Anyway, it used to be farmland right down to the creek. The woods are relatively recent. They’ve grown up in the past seventy years or so. The orchards and gardens are all my family’s doing, revitalized, of course, by Andrew and Star.”

  “When did your family arrive in Ravenkill?” Maggie asked.

  “Just before this house was built in 1846. There wasn’t a lot of money until my great-grandfather’s day in the early 1900s. My grandfather added on to the house and turned it into more of a country estate—a gentleman’s farm—than a homestead.” She trotted down the steps onto the front lawn. “Then my father squandered the family fortune. You know the old adage. First generation makes it, second generation spends it, third generation loses it. That about sums it up as far as the Smiths go.”

  Rob followed Maggie down the steps. “What was your great-grandfather’s fortune in?” he asked.

  “Investments. I don’t know.” Libby waved a hand, her tone cheerful and dismissive. “It doesn’t matter now.”

  Rob noticed the grass was virtually without weeds. Everything about the Old Stone Hollow Inn was picture-perfect. “Your parents—”

  “Dead. First my mother, then my father. They were both gone before I was out of college.”

  “When did you sell the property to the Franconias?” Maggie asked.

  “Four years ago. It was that or the wrecking crane. I never thought I’d stay here, but Andrew and Star wanted someone on the premises during renovations and I didn’t mind. It was fascinating, actually.” She shrugged. “I just haven’t left yet. I’m collecting antiques to open my own shop. Quality stuff. My father was a drunk, but he knew a bit about antiques and taught me. It’s taking some time to pull the right pieces together. I do a little dealing, but it’s not enough so that I can afford to strike out on my own.”

  “Are those your pieces in the barn?” Maggie asked.

  Libby shook her head. “No, they’re Andrew and Star’s. They made their money in the antiques business. They think of themselves as sort of my mentors. Come on. I’ll show you my pieces. They’re on the tour.”

  She led them around to the side of the house, pointing out old rose bushes and lilacs, a sugar maple where her grandmother had once had a swing and a marble fairy statue that her grandfather had picked out because it so looked like her grandmother. She was still talking when she led them down a slope to a full-size cellar door.

  “You have to see the wine cellar,” she said, hefting the heavy door open. “My grandfather had it built almost a hundred years ago.”

  A switch just inside the door turned on a naked yellow lightbulb in the middle of a narrow hall. An old dehumidifier rumbled against one wall. Maggie sneezed. “Dust sensitivity,” she said, sneezing again.

  “You can’t keep the dust out of here,” Libby said. “The original cellar is all stone. Can you imagine? They built it one big old rock at a time. There was a dirt floor, but it got paved over with concrete. This part’s newer, but, still, there’s just not much that can be done about the dust.”

  Rob nodded to an arched wooden door. “Is that the wine cellar?”

  Libby smiled. “Good guess. Doesn’t it remind you of a Vincent Price movie? Alas, no bats and vampires down here.”

  She pulled open the door, which was heavy for her. The room was small and windowless, naturally cool, its concrete walls lined with mostly empty wooden wine racks. Only a few dust-encrusted bottles remained. Libby pulled on a string, and another naked yellow lightbulb came on.

  “It gives a lot of people the creeps to be down here, but not me,” she said. “During the winter and bad weather, I’d hide in here with a book. Of course, my father cleaned out any last remaining bottles of wine. Andrew talks about actually using it again, but he’s very picky about temperature and humidity controls.”

  “What’s through that door?” Maggie asked, pointing to a more ordinary door in the corner of the small room.

  “Storage. It’s interesting to see a house from the inside, don’t you think? But maybe I’m just a frustrated architect. My antiques room is just up the hall.”

  They returned to the hall, passing a battered wooden canoe and broken paddles. “Are these some of your antiques?” Maggie asked.

  “Junk. Andrew thinks he can restore the canoe. I don’t.”

  “Was it in your family?”

  “Everything down here was in my family.”

  Rob didn’t think the canoe had much hope. “Are the Franconias originally from Ravenkill?” he asked.

  “Poughkeepsie,” Libby said, tackling a combination lock on another door. In a few seconds, she had it unlocked and the door pushed open. “Voilà.”

  The room was stacked nearly floor to ceiling with old furniture and crates of glass pieces. Another dehumidifier rumbled and rattled in a corner. Rob noticed desks, tables, chairs, dressers, sofas, cupboards and bookcases, but he couldn’t place any value or determine the origin of any of them.

  Libby sighed proudly. “I know it all looks like dusty old junk to most people, but I can see how it’ll all fit into a shop in the village. I even know which one I want.”

  “Do you specialize in a particular country or era?” Maggie asked, peering at the eclectic jumble of pieces.

  “I just buy what I like. I spend a lot of time and money traveling to find things, keep track of all the documentation. There’s a lot to it.”

  More, Rob was certain, than he wanted to know.

  But the cellar tour ended, and they made their way up the back stairs to a small laundry and supply room, then continued their tour through the main rooms of the first floor. Libby pointed to the door to the ell where she had her minisuite. “It’s very cute,” she said.

  “Anyone else live here full-time?” Rob asked.

  Libby shook her head. “Just the Franconias and me.”

  “Do they have any children?”

  “Two grown daughters. I’m sure they’ll end up inheriting the place.” She spoke without apparent bitterness. “Andrew and Star are such planners. I’m more spontaneous—which is probably why I don’t have a husband, kids or much money.”

  She pointed out several items the Franconias had ended up buying from her, never mind their own expertise in antiques. An early twentieth-century sofa, a Victorian piano stool, an 1840s quilt. “I’d dreamed for so long of what this place could look like,” Libby said. “It was easy to come up with the perfect pieces.”

  They headed upstairs, where she took them through unoccupied guest rooms and sitting rooms, pausing at a hall window with a breathtaking view of the Hudson River. They were near the narrows, Libby explained, where the famous river forced its way between the Appalachians and was at its deepest and most treacherous.

  She turned away from the window. “I never thought I’d have to give up this view.”

  They returned to the main floor and wandered out to the back porch. Libby put her hands on her hips and breathed in the summer air as if to counter all the dust and the nostalgic memories stirred up on her tour.

  Rob dredged up something to say. “It’s humid. Maybe we’ll get rain.” God, he thought, he sounded like his father, talking about the weather. “Think it’ll storm?”

  “A forty-percent chance of thunderstorms, according to the latest weather report,” Libby said. “I should pick the beans before one hits. Thanks for indulging me.”
r />   “Our pleasure,” Maggie said.

  “That’s very gracious of you to say.” Libby gave an irreverent smile. “I’ve never shown the place to a couple of feds. Enjoy the rest of the afternoon.”

  She set off happily down the driveway.

  “Either it doesn’t kill her that she lost the place to a brittle couple she doesn’t like that much,” Rob said, “or she’s good at hiding it.”

  “Maybe she knows that without the Franconias the gardens and orchards would be a golf course by now.”

  He shrugged. “The golf course might have kept the fairy statue.”

  Rob said he wanted to check in with Mike Rivera, and they ended up in Maggie’s room. He didn’t comment on the four-poster bed or the forget-me-not wallpaper. Maggie ducked into her bathroom while he made his call and checked her face for dust and smudges after crawling around the inn’s cellar.

  Libby Smith. Andrew and Star Franconia.

  A country inn.

  Antiques.

  It wasn’t a lot to go on.

  “It’s not anything to go on,” Maggie said to herself, then rejoined Rob in the bedroom.

  He’d finished with his conversation and stood at her window. “Juliet Longstreet thinks Ethan Brooker must have had something to do with the Janssen tip.”

  “Brooker? We don’t have any indication he was even in the Netherlands last week, never mind on Janssen’s heels. I doubt he’d have bothered with a tip.”

  “He wouldn’t have killed Janssen—”

  “I didn’t mean that. I meant he’d have grabbed Janssen himself and hauled him to the police station. He wouldn’t have risked an anonymous e-mail tip. I could have not gotten it in time, I could have ignored it, the Dutch SWAT team could have missed Janssen. Brooker doesn’t sound the sort to take that kind of chance.”

  “Maybe he had a contingency plan if the tip didn’t work out.”

  “Possible. Does Deputy Longstreet trust him?”

  “She doesn’t trust anyone.”

  Maggie hesitated, remembering what she’d read about Rob and Longstreet. “You two—”

  She didn’t have to go further. Rob shook his head. “Long and well over.”

  “I don’t even know why I asked.”

  “Because you’re curious,” he said. “You want to know.”

  She licked her lips, her mouth suddenly dry. “Why would I want to know?”

  “Because you want to dismiss me as some stereotype—”

  “The well-connected Southern frat boy who speaks five languages—”

  “Seven.”

  “And who’s friends with the president and is a guest at diplomatic receptions, not just the protection—”

  “I can be the protection, too. But, yes. That sums up the stereotype you want to lay on me to keep from getting too close—”

  “Rob, you are a well-connected Southern frat boy who speaks seven languages.”

  He smiled. “I never joined a fraternity. And it doesn’t matter. You like me, anyway.”

  “I suppose one shouldn’t mistake charm for a lack of confidence—”

  “No, one shouldn’t.”

  He spoke with an ease and natural humor that somehow only underlined the edge to him, the air of danger that had nothing to do with posturing and everything to do with self-assurance and purpose.

  He’d had a hell of a year, Maggie reminded herself. He’d been shot. His family had nearly been destroyed. He’d had a long recovery that, in some ways, was probably still ongoing.

  A little flirtation and attraction that she could keep under control she could handle. But they were fast passing that point.

  “Your father’s a diplomat,” she said.

  “The first in the family. My ancestors were riverboat workers and brawlers. Most of them probably looked like Southern frat boys, too.”

  “Okay. So I won’t pigeonhole you.”

  “It’d be smarter not to. Less likely you’ll get in over your head.”

  “How would I—”

  “By thinking I’m something I’m not. Like not interested in redheaded DS agents who have clandestine meetings in Dutch cathedrals and a penchant for trouble—”

  “I don’t always have that penchant. Only this week.”

  He touched her hair. “You’re not that easy to draw out, are you, Maggie?”

  The way he said her name. She shut her eyes a moment to collect herself. “Christ, Rob. I’m supposed to be checking out this inn.”

  “You did check it out. You had a tour of the cellar and you saw the fairy statue and the view of the Hudson.”

  His voice was so quiet, and he was standing close enough to her that she could feel his hips, the brush of his chest against her. He let his hand linger on her arm. Even as she warned herself against the impulse, Maggie leaned into him, and he dropped his hand to her waist, gently turning her into him. She thought he whispered her name. She could feel the warm air, moist and heavy with the increasing humidity.

  “Rob…it’s okay, it’s…” She smiled, raising her mouth to his, answering the unspoken question. “Yes.”

  Their kiss started out tentative, but that didn’t last. Maggie opened her mouth, eager to taste him, let him explore her. He lowered an arm to her hips and pulled her against him. She felt the tight, strong muscles in his shoulders and back, the tautness of his hips as her hands skimmed over him, everything about him suddenly firing her senses.

  He lifted her onto him, and she could feel that he was as aroused as she was, as if their close proximity to each other since he’d arrived in Holland—together with the violence and chases and diversions—had built up, erupting now with more intensity than either of them could have anticipated.

  He skimmed his thumbs over her breasts, eliciting a soft moan from her that had nothing to do with fatigue or jet lag. It would be so easy just to fall into bed with him. Her pretty four-poster was right there, a few feet way, in the path of the afternoon breeze.

  But they broke apart as suddenly as they’d come together. A timer might have gone off, or an alarm reminding them of who they were and what they were about.

  Rob backed up a step, exhaling as he ran a hand through his hair. “I didn’t expect that to happen.”

  Maggie took in a ragged breath. “Ha.”

  He grinned at her. “Okay, I didn’t expect it to happen the way it did. I’ve been thinking it might sooner or later, but—” He smiled at her, not even breathing hard. “I don’t want to get you fired.”

  “Trust me, Bremmerton can find more reasons to fire me than sneaking a kiss with a good-looking marshal.”

  His expression turned serious. “Maggie—”

  She didn’t let him draw her out. Just stick to the facts. “You must need to get back to New York. Did you tell Chief Rivera everything?”

  Rob pulled open the door to the hall. “He doesn’t know you’re a redhead with the most beautiful turquoise eyes—”

  “That charm again.”

  He laughed. “It’s a killer, isn’t it?”

  They walked downstairs, past the view that Libby Smith had said she loved so much. When they reached the back porch, Maggie felt the carrot-orange soup burning up her throat. “You’re going to look into William Raleigh, aren’t you?”

  “Discreetly, but yes.”

  “Let me know—”

  “Of course.” There was no sarcasm in his tone. “Bremmerton?”

  Maggie thought a moment. “I think he knows more than he’s saying, but I can’t be more specific than that.”

  Rob sighed. “Fair enough. You’ve got my cell phone number. You know the number at the office. Call. I can be back up here in less than an hour if I break the speed limits.”

  She walked with him to his car.

  He winked at her. “I’d kiss you goodbye—”

  “We’ve given the locals enough to talk about, don’t you think?”

  After he left, Maggie felt the afternoon humidity in the air. There was no breeze. She heard
bees in the dahlias and a crow far off in the distance, but no birds, it seemed, nearby.

  Libby waved from the vegetable garden, but kept to her task which seemed to be picking loose leaf lettuce. Maggie continued on to the back porch, where Star Franconia was cleaning tables and taking in short, quick gulps, as if she were trying to keep herself from crying. Maggie didn’t disturb her and ducked inside.

  There was no sign of Andrew in the garden, on the porch or inside.

  Maggie had no idea what to do with herself. There was no evidence the Franconias or their staff or any of their guests were engaged in criminal wrongdoing.

  Why had William Raleigh sent her here?

  Who the hell was he?

  When she and George Bremmerton had talked that morning, he’d all but vouched for Raleigh. That counted for something, even if he was being vague.

  She headed back up to her room, telling herself that it was necessary, okay and actually quite smart of her to be in Ravenkill on her own.

  Twelve

  It was early evening when Ethan arrived at JFK.

  He didn’t know what’d happened to Raleigh. Probably wandering around Amsterdam, checking out the sights and talking to himself. Maybe hitting the bottle. Trying to talk himself out of a psych ward. Ethan was a decent judge of character, but the year since his wife’s death had left him less certain about everything he’d once taken for granted.

  He paid a fortune for a cab to take him to the Upper West Side building where Juliet Longstreet was borrowing an apartment from a friend who was off to Hollywood for six months.

  Deputy Longstreet wouldn’t be happy to see him. But he didn’t have money for a New York hotel, and he’d be happy to see her.

  He didn’t know why.

  He talked his way past the doorman. It wasn’t that hard, which made him think she needed a new doorman. When he got up to her floor, her door was shut and locked up tight, and it occurred to him she could be on vacation.

  But surely not Deputy Longstreet. It’d been just four months since two of Janssen’s goons had dragged her off the street into their car with every intention of killing her. She’d escaped, jumping into oncoming traffic and getting a hell of a road rash on her upper thigh. Ethan’d seen the rash when it was still raw and bloody, because she’d also turned up in a limestone cave in Night’s Landing, where he’d been posing as the Dunnemores’ property manager.